HEY! GOOGLE! STOP screwing with my Gmail HI
18Dearest Google,
I’m so over having to re-learn how to interface with my email every freakin’ morning because some Google software genius had a newer, better idea how to make your mangled human interface even worse.
Pro tip: MOST software engineers are not a good source for human interface design.
So please, stop.
K? K.
Your pal,
- 7 comments, 14 replies
- Comment
They’re not listening, I fear.
/giphy “not listening”
Dearest @ruouttaurmind,
This is meh…not Google
Good luck!
@lilsrm123 Yes. Thank you for pointing this out.
Yes, sometimes it seems that they don’t think about users at all. What would you like to change in Gmail if you could?
@DaltonLI I would have them put back the meh face calendar all the time as an option.
@DaltonLI Remove everything that looks unlike Outlook, and replace it with something very much Outlook-like.
I can’t believe I support Microsoft over Google on this.
@DaltonLI They used to have an uncannily accurate sorting filter. Shortly after they implemented the “Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates” auto-labeling scheme (actually using slightly different labels then, you know, because they’re Google and they gotta keep changing stuff).
But I digress… the filter for auto-labeling incoming messages was eerily accurate. I would say an unscientific guess is 99.5% accurate. But Google, always being compelled to change stuff that’s already working well, made changes to the filter. Auto-labeling accuracy is… well, auto-labeling inaccuracy now.
I would also like to see some amount of continuity among the various interface methods. Currently, iOS - iPhone, iOS iPad, and webmail all have their own unique HI. Why? There isn’t any reason I can concoct which would justify this. OS limitations? Sure, but even with that it’s possible to come MUCH closer to a consistent look and feel.
I will only say about nested prefence menu options: Where’s Waldo? Google’s preference and settings menus across nearly all their products are a particularly painful exercise in defying logic and reason.
I won’t bore you with my full list of complaints, save my original point: if it works, don’t screw with it. Heck, if it doesn’t work… don’t screw with it just to make me learn how to interact with a newer not-working version.
@DaltonLI I would like to be able to actually get to my Gmail. They have changed it so often I now go in circles and can no longer figure out how to get into it. I also have a Yahoo account and have to use that one. Gmail lost me.
@ripper69 have you tried gmail.com?
Maybe if you said “Hi” at the beginning instead of the end they would listen to you.
@sammydog01
Fair one.
@ruouttaurmind @sammydog01 I’m fairly certain they are always listening, they just don’t answer all the time.
What changed? My Gmail interface has looked the same for at least six months now with display density set to compact, and all the conversation view/label/category settings disabled. Do you have ‘Enable experimental access’ turned on?
@Aspirant_Fool I’m actually complaining about something that changed a bit ago, but I finally reached my boiling point over: the auto-labeling business, and the way conversations are handled when you delete an inbox message. I spent most of an hour trying to rebuild a fractured conversion trail.
@ruouttaurmind I haaaate conversation view for several reasons, and that’s one of them, but you can kill it in settings. I didn’t want it in Outlook, and I don’t want it in Gmail. Same with auto-labeling; I can manage my own filters, thanks.
What happens with conversations on inbox message deletion? Does it trash the whole thread?
@Aspirant_Fool @ruouttaurmind
Just to mention:
Aspiring to be more as I am is not necessarily a good thing.
/8ball am I a fool?
Cannot predict now
/giphy fool
@Aspirant_Fool
Well, it’s unpredictable. Gmail behaves differently depending some criteria which I have yet to decipher. If I delete a conversation, then later go back into my Sent Items, sometimes, my message or reply is there, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes portions of a conversation can be found in the trash, sometimes not. It’s maddening when I have to go back and recreate a thread because a client claims I promised something or committed to a schedule or whatever. Usually I’ll save messages until a project is complete. But occasionally I’ll delete something that seems totally benign and only later becomes a hot button.
Oh, how I still pine for Eudora!! That’s the last time I could actually manage my + 300 k # of emails, (~15 years ago now). It could search through all 300 k of messages in under 2 seconds in XP, using anything, including Regular Expressions. (vs 2-4 hours using Thunderbird–so much for the value of “open source”) Sorting by any field, or sub-sorting another field took 10 seconds for 50 k of emails. You could use other standard tools from your PC, like File Explorer to manage things like all your attachments, because: Mailboxes were FILES. Indexes were FILES, attachments were FILES. Except for sending and receiving, you could work on email organization, replies, reading, or searching, all without an internet connection.
Alas, Qualcomm gave up Eudora, and shortly after stopped naming stadiums for them as well. But, Eudora showed what brilliant PAID engineers are truly capable of… (of course, without being as “politically correct”, or of the “proper background”, as I am sure all the Google engineers are today…)
I’d KILL to PAY for a copy of Eudora that supported GMail’s version of MAPI–That would save me many hours per week. Today, there is NO alternative that works well and performs well, and is even marginally acceptable. RIP great, brilliant engineering.
@DaaBoss I started using Eudora as a free email client on my Macs… probably 15 years ago. I stuck with it until I switched everyone to Thunderbird two years ago. Over the years I tried several other clients and always stuck with Eudora.
It sounds like you would probably benefit from accessing your GMail through Thunderbird or Outlook instead of through the webmail interface. It’s not that difficult to set up.
@Limewater No iOS client for Thunderbird. I use Thunderbird for my in-office email addresses, but Gmail for more casual business interactions and my personal email. I use Outlook on my phone for the less casual business email addresses (AP/AR, maintenance and management, vendors, etc).
I’ve toyed with a few other clients, but each has their own bag of bummers.